Monthly Archives: May 2014

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It was lots of pirate accents, some dodgy pirate jokes. (What do pirates like looking at in the night sky? A starrrrrrrrrr.)

It was wooden swords, it was crying and/or laughing children, it was rolling down hills and getting muddy.

It was playing croquet. Then using the croquet set to build a castle, ride horses, have sword fights, find wood louse families, practice bowling…and cry over how hard croquet was. To sit squashed up against each other and slide down concrete walls. To run away, over the horizon and down a hill, and have no grown ups worry or fret.

It was hunting for treasure, running in the rain, roasting in the sun. Rolled up pirate maps and little golf pencils, playing in every tree we saw, ice cream dripping down faces and drying like pirate beards.

Today was texting with friends who wandered off, imagining boat battles in a dried up lake, wondering about that guy who kept taking pictures of leaves. And keeping a safe distance from the rock and roll speedy red van delivering post.

It was shouting out to hear our joyful echoes, and exploring a place full of rusty farm implements (!), and being Frodo and trying to bring a golden ring to a lava filled mountain. Milking statue cows, getting stuck in an empty fountain, running…running…running. Mud coating our bottoms, our boots, our backpacks.

We are so lucky this can be our every day. Even when it means we have to come home and wash cow diarrhoea off our feet, even when we get tired from walking for five hours, even when the rain pours down and bathes us as we run back into our house.

Lucky.

Most of these pics were taken by our friend, the mother of the other three joyful children pictured! We are especially lucky to have such great friends to share adventures with.

“We are up Smurf Creek without a paddle,” Gutsy said, pointing to the portal. It was beginning to close!

The book A Smurfin’ Big Adventure is simultaneously the worst thing I’ve ever read, yet the most intriguing. The dubious plot is spiced up by random nonsensical things being thrown in – portals, human beings (!), and endless TTDMS (things that don’t make sense). It’s well known amongst close friends that I like bad things. Things that are so bad they circle around to being good again. The movie Sleepaway Camp springs to mind.

The Smurfs, though, never fell into that category. They were smurftastic. My little smurfy friends. Until this book morphed the traditional exchange of variations of the word ‘smurf’ with any and all adjectives to a straight up expletive replacement. I half expected there to be a bank robbery, with the villains shouting, ‘Gimmie the smurfing money before I blow your head right the smurf off!’

To be honest, it makes me want to inject a little blue flavoured obscenity into my own life, though my wife has made it clear she doesn’t approve of my new ambition.

Perhaps it is for the best. Because those blue guys fight smurfin’ dirty. Look:

Gargamel suddenly saw that the walls of the castle were covered with Smurfs- and more were coming up behind them! Gargamel raised his wand, but the Smurfs started pelting him with with walnuts, eggs, and even a frying pan! Gargamel dropped his wand.

I’ll bet he did. It’s obvious that the poor guy suffers from food allergies and the Smurfs will stop at nothing to defeat him, even anaphylaxis. I hope he has an epipen hidden in his smurfing wand.

We are lucky enough to live in a city that loves hot air balloons. Spring through autumn (but especially summer), when dawn and/or dusk are clear, dozens of balloons fill the skies. And due to the way the wind blows, they drift right over our house. We often wake up to skies of balloons – rainbow coloured, chicken shaped, countless balloons – low and lazy, we can hear the fire and see the flames as they heat the air. And when we go out for sunset adventures, a great summer tradition, they hang low in the sky above.

My childhood was filled with memories of watching hot air balloons take off. The high school just down the road from us had a big field, and we’d go down once a week or so to watch the balloons be unrolled, inflated, floating. One landed in the field across from my house one day, and that memory of excitement is as bright as the balloon itself was.

Last summer we took the kids to our city’s International Balloon Fiesta. It always happens right around their birthday weekend, and they are already looking forward to this summer. We spent the day in hot sun, picnicking, watching planes do aerobatics overhead, riding Ferris wheels. And at sunset, we watched over a hundred balloons depart the skies. It was amazing.

We’ve been having jokey conversations about what sort of balloons we would design – because the balloons in our city aren’t just all colourful, but multi shaped – and so I thought, Hmm. Let’s make some to hang in the house. I cast my memory back to the third grade and some Christmas decorations I made in school, explained the idea to the kids, and we ran out into the garden.

Armed with glue, yarn, balloons, empty yogurt pots, tissue paper, and all sorts of stuff. An easy little craft, I thought. And I’ll put up a tutorial once we’ve finished them.

But OH THE DRAMA. We had popped balloons, glue covering most of our bodies, soggy wet yarn drying itself to the path in big clumpy knots.

At one point, little S actually fell backwards into the paddling pool while fully clothed. It was like a bad children’s movie! To her credit and determination, her grip on her wet balloon never faltered and though she was crying and covered in suspiciously green, ice cold water, she held the balloon up and safe.

This is as far we we’ve got:

For our physical and emotional safety (only half a joke, folks!), we’ve decided to leave it for today and do more tomorrow. Don’t ask why there’s only one. What happened to the other one is busy being repressed by the owner of that ill fated hot air balloon. Maybe it’s gone to that clear, lightly breezy place in the heavens.

Naked children running free out in the sunshine,
and I wonder how anyone could think that shady classrooms,
lining up, sitting in seats, staying still,
is more powerful than light, air, water fights, daisy chains.

We are four.

We are watching that magpie nest in the garden, we are drawing
our own hopscotch. We are watering our seeds,
squealing naked bums against slides,
pouring water onto the grass to make muddy puddles
so we can
SPLASH.

We leave all the doors open so we can wander in and out.

If our friends come over, they wander, too. We are watching clouds,
digging up ants, riding scooters, laughing and running
and chasing each other
and we have the space to be, be, be.

This is exactly where we are supposed to be, at four, outside and
breathing deep. This is where we draw our power,
where we discover heat and rain and
ourselves.

I really really want to hop on a bus and go to this one market in town. It has all sorts of stalls selling all sorts of things, including a wonderful, funky vegan cafe. I want to go there with the kids and get them some decadent chocolate thing.

Then wander around, listen to street musicians. Maybe play in the fountains. Or take a long boat ride.

There is a lot to see and do, but today we are staying home yet again because my pelvis/coccyx/spine still isn’t quite right. This too shall pass, right?

I do love days where we stay in, maybe because they are so rare. Yesterday we missed pottery and a park home ed meet, but the kids spent a lot of time outdoors with their Grampy, building a bee house and planting wildflowers. In the afternoon friends came over. S and her little pal went up to my room with popcorn and Lady and the Tramp. M and his friend played a bit of minecraft, took a bunch of Lego outside, got rained on.

We painted some faces. Got hot in the sunshine, and then chilly in the house. Gave friends a tour of the Baby Animal Club. Swung from branches in the front garden. They also did some phonics apps, and M read a few words!

So you see, even when we stay in, there is lots to do.

But still, as the sunshine pours down and the temperature is expected to be roasty and lovely, it’s hard to not hop on a bus and go see where it takes us.

Like this:

The kids were told off several times tonight (in a nice way) for cuddling during Tang Soo Do. It would be one or the other’s turn to punch and kick stuff, and they were too busy hugging.

The teacher was like, ‘What are you doing?’

S exclaimed, ‘Cuddling!’

After class, the teacher was hanging around while all the kids were getting shoes on, etc. S went up to say thank you, and the teacher replied, ‘You’re welcome. You did really well tonight. But the two of you need to stop cuddling! Cuddles at home, kicking and punching at Tang Soo Do!’

It was at that point that I chose to inform her that the mainstay of their recent home activity is, in fact, punching and kicking.